In the production of garments in an industrial setting in which batches of garment parts are delivered to work stations where the garment parts are connected together, it is important that the sewing equipment provided to the worker be fast and efficient in its operation, but also it is important that the garment parts can be expediently loaded on the equipment. Further, it is highly desirable that once the garment parts have been loaded in position and the equipment is placed in operation that the worker be able to momentarily leave the equipment while the equipment continues to operate. This enables the worker to operate more than one machine and to gather more garment parts and match them together for presentation to another duplicate machine for its next cycle of operation.
In the production of stretchable garments, such as sweat suits having a shirt body made of fleece and a waist band of stretchable knit material, it is sometimes difficult for the worker or the equipment to accurately control the material as it is being fed to the sewing machine. For example, when the knitted waist band of a sweat suit is to be connected to the waist edge of the fleece shirt body, the more stretchable waist band may be of smaller breadth than the waist edge of the shirt body when both garments are relaxed. The waist edges of the shirt bodies may vary in breadth from shirt to shirt. When the waist band and the waist edge of the shirt body are being guided to the sewing machine, the waist band usually must be stretched more than the waist edge of the shirt body in order that they are properly matched in breadth as they are sewn together. Further, the edge of the fleece material usually tends to curl as it is stretched, which requires the curled edges to be flattened before they are presented to the sewing needle of the sewing machine. Also, some of the waist bands are cut to improper widths or are cut with non-uniform widths which, when sewn to the shirt body, etc., ultimately causes the garment to be unaccepted.
Because of these inherent problems in presenting the stretchable waist band and shirt or pants body materials to the sewing needles of the sewing machine and operating the equipment, machine operators have been required to develop relatively high skill in presenting the work product to the sewing machine. As a part of the presentation of the work product to the sewing machine, the operators also typically have had to stretch the waist bands, as by pulling the waist bands laterally, to match the waist edges of the garments prior to presenting the waist band materials to the sewing machine. Such a stretching motion becomes extremely tiresome for the operator over the course of a work shift during which 3000-4000 articles are finished. As a result, work productivity is slowed and there is a greater chance of injury occurring.
Further, the presentation of the work product to and the sewing of the work product by the sewing machine requires substantially full attention of the operator during at least some of the cycle of operation of the sewing machine to watch for jamming and the formation of wrinkles about the waist band and waist edge of the garment. This results in the operator not having enough time during the cycle of operation of the sewing machine to retrieve and assemble the next garment parts that are to be presented to the sewing machine or to operate two machines simultaneously.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a sewing machine assembly for sewing waist band materials to the waist edges of garments that is easy to load and operate without requiring the complete and exacting attention of the operator so as to enable the operator to perform additional tasks and/or operate additional machines at the same time.